Im hopeful we will very much try to learn as much as possible from that facility and from all the other ones. We have a lot to learn here. We will certainly be trying to do that. In terms of fiscal concerns, for many years, i have been before the fed, i have long time been an advocate for the need for the United States to return to a sustainable path from a fiscal perspective at the federal level. We have not been on such a path for some time which just means the debt is growing faster than the economy. This is not the time to act liz well, you know what, it was going along really, really well and it was making history. That was of course chairman Jerome Powell of the Federal Reserve. This is the very first time we have ever had i guess its considered a zoom Federal Reserve meeting and reporters, of course, were standing by. You saw the chiclet screen there. Here we are. We got it back. Lets dip right back in. But to let that get in the way of us winning this battle really. Edward lawrence. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Edward lawrence from fox business network. Given the amount of stimulus on the fiscal side and Monetary Policy side, how much weight do you give to finding a vaccine, from clearing that uncertainty you talked about around treatment and whatnot, for the Federal Reserve pulling back on some of the feds actions and raising the rates from the zero lower bound. Also, when does that main Street Lending facility get deployed because you talked about soon. Some businesses are in need now. Thank you. So we dont were not in a position to make, you know, a reliable assessment of when a vaccine or therapeutic drug would be ready, so were not going to set our policies based on our estimate of that. We are going to just provide the support that we can with the tools that we have and we are going to keep doing that until the recoverys well under way. In terms of main street, so you know the story. We put out a term sheet, we got a lot of comments, we took those very much to heart. We spent a great deal of time here. Its a challenging space because its many different kinds of borrowers have different needs, different sizes of companies, so as i mentioned, we are very close to announcing a new term sheet which will then become operative fairly quickly. My guess is, though, we will keep looking to add products, add different kinds of borrowers to that as we go. We are well aware of the importance of doing it as quickly as possible. You know, we are very much in touch with the urgency of that need. Chair powell, just wanted to follow up on the question on the labor market. I know you said that its highly uncertain but there are analysts who think we will have very high unemployment until the end of next year, as high as 9 , and at this point, can you just talk a little more about what you see in the path of employment in the coming months and into next year . Unemployment is going to go up to a high number in the Second Quarter. Uncertain what the number will be. When and thats because so much Economic Activity has been shuttered really as we take social distancing measures. So sometime fairly soon here, and probably gradually and at different paces, at different parts of the country, we will see social distancing measures rolled back, people will begin to spend more money. Its really Consumer Spending has fallen precipitously, and once that starts to happen, people will get hired back and unemployment will go back down. I dont think it will get anywhere near the historically low level that we had in as recently as february, 3. 5 . I think it will take some time for that to happen, for us to get back to anything that resembles maximum employment. But i mean, the main thing we want, we want to get back on that road. We want to get that recovery going and get people back to work as fast as we can. Not faster than we can. But as fast as we can. The main thing is to get into that stage where the economys healing, where we have the disease under control, where we dont, you know, take too much risk of second and third waves and that sort of thing, and get people back to work. You know, again, the path of it is highly uncertain, but we will be there with our tools supporting the economy and supporting that recovery. Scott horsley. After the financial crisis, banks were instructed to up their capital so they could weather an economic shock. What kind of steps do you think we need to take for the economy writ large to make it more resilient to this kind of shock . Can you just say that . You are a little bit low volume. Yes. What kind of steps can we take to help the economy as a whole be more resilient to this kind of exogenous shock . This is an extraordinary shock, unlike anything certainly thats happened in my lifetime. And a couple things come to mind. I think the time will come for careful assessment of the answers to those questions. Its early to be asking them. We are still putting out the fire. We are still trying to win. I think we will be at that for awhile. You know, but i point to a couple of directions. You know, we worked hard to strengthen the banks, much higher levels of capital liquidity, far greater sense of what the risks are theyre running and how to manage them. So the breakdowns that we have seen in market function have really been in the Capital Markets. And i wouldnt rush in with prudential regulation into the Capital Markets but i think and we did plenty of things. We did a lot of reform in the Capital Markets. Money market reform, central clearing, all these important things. But there will no doubt be, with the size and force of this shock, will no doubt reveal weaknesses in the financial architecture and well have to go to work on those. I also think it tells you the importance of getting your fiscal house in order. The u. S. Really hadnt gotten back to where we needed to get on fiscal policy and you know, so we have an already high level of debt to gdp and rising quickly when this shock arrived. Now, we have the fiscal capacity to deal with it, i believe, but we will need to ideally you would go into an unexpected shock like this with a much stronger fiscal posture. Mike mckie. Mr. Chairman, given the demand drop, demand shock and the drop in oil prices, do you anticipate that we might see any kind of deflation, even for a very short period that would require a fed response . If we get a negative print on cpi or cpe, how should people think about that . Second question, there is a disconnect it appears between the markets and the Economic Outlook right now. I know you said this isnt the time to worry about moral hazard but do you worry with the size of stimulus that you and congress are putting into the economy, there could be Financial Stability problems as this goes along . In terms of inflation, we think that inflation is very closely and strongly related to Inflation Expectations, and during the Global Financial crisis, there was a concern that we might see deflation. But it didnt happen. Inflation tended to move down a little bit, as it will when demand is weak, and but Inflation Expectations did not move strongly down here in the United States. They have in other places in the world, though, over the past 25 years. Theres been downward pressure on inflation really for several decades now. So i would say as long as Inflation Expectations remain anchored, then we shouldnt see deflation and the Federal Reserve is strongly committed to maintaining 2 inflation over time. So well be there to work on that. I think you asked really about headline inflation. If low Energy Prices, very low Energy Prices were to drop headline inflation negative, i would hope that people would see through that and we will be monitoring it very carefully, would see through it, though, and look to core which is a better predictor of future inflation. Needless to say, we will be keeping very close track of that. In terms of the markets, you know, our concern is that they be working. Were not were not focused on the level of asset prices in particular. Its just markets are trying to price in something that is so uncertain as to be unknowable which is the path of this virus globally and its effect on the economy. Thats very very hard to do. Thats why you see volatility the way its been, market reacting to things with a lot of volatility. But you know, what we are trying to assure, really, is that the market is working. The market is assessing risks. Lenders are lending, borrowers are borrowing, asset prices are moving in response to events. That is really important for everybody, including, including, you know, the most vulnerable among us, because if markets stop working and credit stops flowing, then you see thats when you see, you know, very sharp negative, even more negative economic outcome. So i think our measures have supported market function pretty well. You know, were going to stay very carefully monitoring that, but i think its been good to see markets working again, particularly the flow of credit in the economy has been a positive thing, as businesses have been able to build up their liquidity buffers and households have been able to be home, you know, people have been home, concerned about their jobs, but theyre not concerned about the Financial System collapsing as they were in 2008 and 09. Chris from a. P. Chair powell, thank you. I guess i had two questions. I wanted to start on the unemployment picture and nail down a little bit how you see things going from here. You did talk about potential loss of skills over time so are you worried about structural changes in job markets that would keep unemployment high and therefore potentially beyond the ability of the fed to do anything about, which is something that was debated as you know after the last recession, and then eventually of course, the Unemployment Rate did go lower than people thought. Second question is just on the money from treasury, the 464 billion. It sounds like you want to keep that in reserve for programs that have high demand such as the main street program. Are you willing to use that to backstop say a program that is having more losses . What is your tolerance for loss among that 454 billion . Thank you. So in terms of the labor market, the risk to damage to peoples skills and their careers and their lives is a function of time to some extent. The longer one is unemployed, the harder it gets, i think, and we probably have all seen this in our lives. Harder it is to get back into the work force and get back to where you were, if you ever do get back to where you were. Longer and deeper downturns have left more of a mark generally in that dimension, with the labor force. So thats why, as i mentioned, thats why the urgency in doing what we can to prevent that longer run damage. It doesnt have to be that way. We wont be able to limit all of it but we do have the tools to do what we can to keep people in touch with the labor force and working and also out of insolvency, too. It doesnt seem fair that people should lose everything they have, including their homes, over this. So nonetheless, there will be some of that but we do have some tools to ameliorate that. So in terms of the money, you know, the 454 billion, its a couple things. First, the treasury secretary really has authority over that. And it stands in front of our losses. So you know, i do think we are we are clearly moving into areas where there is more risk than there has been in the past. And thats okay. I think thats what we are supposed to do. This is a very unusual time. So but in terms of the way to think about that money, i think thats really a question for the treasury department. You know, we are we set up the facilities and we work very very closely and successfully and collaboratively with treasury on this, but that particular aspect of it falls more to the secretary. Okay. We will go to Nancy Marshall for the last question. Nancy marshall with marketplace. Chair powell, im wondering what you would say to savers who are hurt by very low Interest Rates and maybe going into investments maybe in the stock market that arent so great for them and also, im wondering if you can give us any more of a clue as to how long you think we are going to have Interest Rates near zero. So we think that low Interest Rates affect the economy through a number of channels in a positive way. Lower Interest Rates support Economic Activity through channels that overall through channels that we understand reasonably well. They make it cheaper to borrow, they drive, you know, your costs of borrowing down, they do raise asset prices including the value of your home, if your saver owns a home or has a 401 k , your saver will benefit from that. But for people who are really just relying on their Bank Savings Account earnings, this is, you know, thats youre not going to benefit from low Interest Rates. But you know, we have to look out for the overall economy. Low Interest Rates support employment, they support Economic Activity, and those are our mandates and i think for the overall good of the economy, low Interest Rates are a good thing. And that does not say theyre good for every Single Person but that shouldnt stop us from doing what we think is good for the whole. In terms of how low, i really dont want to speculate. We will turn to questions like that soon enough but in terms of how long well stay and under what conditions we will stay at the effective lower bound, those are just exactly the things we are thinking about. Right now, we like the place we are. We have said that we will keep our rates where they are until we are confident that the economy has weathered the effects of the outbreak and is on track to achieve our goals. So thats where we are. We are not changing that guidance today. You know, but it will be that means we are going to be very patient, that means we are not going to be in any hurry to move rates up. Thank you very much. Thanks. Liz all right. Federal reserve chairman Jerome Powell calling the coronavirus an extraordinary shock. In fact, he even said it was the biggest of his lifetime, so big that he did issue what jumped out at me, and that was a warning during this firstever virtual Federal ReserveNews Conference, and the warning was, this is what he said, the size and force of the economic shock from the coronavirus and its aftermath will no doubt reveal what he called cracks in the Financial System or architecture, as he put it. Now, chairman powell did reiterate his promise that the Federal Reserve will act aggressively and forcefully until the United States is on the road to recovery. The fomc did leave the basic Interest Rate, overnight short term Interest Rate at 0 to. 25 , where it was last time around, and the markets appear to be very comfortable with fed chair powells tone and substance. Dow jones industrials, we are not far from the high of the session. High of the session, a gain of 663. We are up about 600. The s p and nasdaq are also showing green on the screen here. S p jumping 84. Look at the nasdaq, up 328. High of the session, right around here, 328 points. Now, treasury yields, lets flip it over to that. That is always sort of that fear trade. Not a lot of fear here because they are ticking slightly higher. They plummet when theres nervousness in the market. This morning the tenyear stood at. 58 . Right now, we are at. 62 for the tenyear yield. Looking at the u. S. Dollar, the greenback slid slightly after the announcement, probably because, you know, when you look at what the fed is doing, and there is so much intervention that is dollar negative at certain points but we do have most currencies slightly higher against the u. S. Dollar. Yesterday, the mexican peso had a very big day and it continues on that track. Lets flip it over to financials, because as you look at what the big names and quite frankly, some of the regionals are doing, there is green on the screen here, because he did compliment the big name banks and some of the middle sized banks, too, because during the financial crisis, they were that point of horrific weakness. This time around, they are well capitalized, he said, and very much on firm, terra firma. Citigroup up 6 . Nice move there. Bank of america up 4. 5 . Morgan and jpmorgan up about 3 , 3 plus. Goldman sachs better by 2 . Lets bring in the really smart people who understand fedspeak because i promise, guys, my viewers would get some translation here. Andy brenner and steven gallagh gallagher. Andy, give me your gut reaction to what he said. The markets seem to feel very confident that hes on the case. Absolutely. No question that chair powell and the Federal Reserve are all in, doing a great job. There was a survey in barrons over the weekend saying there was a 90 positive rating towards the fed. He was very comfortable today, very calm. He told you that theyre here, theyre on the job and if they have to do more, they got plenty of money with which to do more. Very good question and answers and a lot of comfort there. I tend to think that, you know, a lot of the naysayers, we have had some really smart names come out and talk negatively about equities,